Beyond the Boys’ Club: Inclusive Architecture Disrupting Sporting Precincts

When Kate Roach and Marianne Calvelo first walked into the 95-year-old John Gent stand at the Western Bulldogs Football Club home ground, they found what Roach describes as “a sick building”—dark, uninspiring and seemingly antithetical to good club culture and athletic excellence.

Eighteen months later, their female-led design team transformed this modest component of the Whitten Oval redevelopment into something remarkable.

While tens of millions of dollars were being spent on conventional sports facilities next door, this small team of female architects and designers, led by Warren and Mahoney Melbourne principal Kate Roach and senior associate Marianne Calvelo, quietly turned athletic infrastructure on its head.